G.R.;A number of years ago we developed a process to help newbies open the dough into pizza skins with a much more consistent cross section thickness. We have demonstrated that we can train a total novice (someone who has never opened a dough ball into a pizza skin) in about 15-minutes in the "art" of opening dough into pizza skins. The procedure is simple, but as you have noted, it does require the use of a sheeter/dough roller. Using the sheeter, set the rolls to open the dough to about 2/3 of the desired finished diameter, then finish opening the dough by hand to the final size. Works like a charm! At A.J's here in Manhattan, Kansas we are constantly training K-State students to work at the dough bench so we are always training someone. That 15-minute time might even be a little on the long side. We typically run the dough twice through the sheeter to get a round shape of the correct diameter, we pre-sheet about 6 dough pieces and stack them up next to the sheeter, then we start bench stretching to finished size. For appearances, we finish with a hand toss.If you want to learn more about pizza production we have our annual Practical Production Technology and Innovation course coming up October 28 - November 1, 2013. To get information on this course please send an e-mail to Jeff Zeak at <[email protected]> .Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

G.R.;A number of years ago we developed a process to help newbies open the dough into pizza skins with a much more consistent cross section thickness. We have demonstrated that we can train a total novice (someone who has never opened a dough ball into a pizza skin) in about 15-minutes in the "art" of opening dough into pizza skins. The procedure is simple, but as you have noted, it does require the use of a sheeter/dough roller. Using the sheeter, set the rolls to open the dough to about 2/3 of the desired finished diameter, then finish opening the dough by hand to the final size. Works like a charm! At A.J's here in Manhattan, Kansas we are constantly training K-State students to work at the dough bench so we are always training someone. That 15-minute time might even be a little on the long side. We typically run the dough twice through the sheeter to get a round shape of the correct diameter, we pre-sheet about 6 dough pieces and stack them up next to the sheeter, then we start bench stretching to finished size. For appearances, we finish with a hand toss.If you want to learn more about pizza production we have our annual Practical Production Technology and Innovation course coming up October 28 - November 1, 2013. To get information on this course please send an e-mail to Jeff Zeak at <[email protected]> .Tom Lehmann/The Dough Doctor

Great info Tom; thanks! I have thought to try this before but was worried because one often hears a lot of talk about trying to press the air bubbles out from the center to the cornicione area to get the nice puff. Myself, I don't really see any air/bubbles moving around and try as I might I just can't seem to get the hang of "proper" opening technique. Hope this new way works good.

Mr Lehmann;I am at 58% hydration right now, and the dough feels real sticky and almost too wet to me already, I fear that if I go up to 62% I may have something closer to a pancake batter on my hands.My flour is coming from Sysco, so I wonder if there may be a problem with my supply line that I cannot rectify?My mixer finish temps have been coming out at 84-86 degrees (non-contact IR thermometer, and probe) it gets scaled and balled immediately, oiled, and in the cooler ASAP, It is workable as an emergency dough, but seems to be at its best after retarded 12-24 hours, and it lasts 4 days before it blows out too badly.

At anything over an hour at room temp, I am seeing much more rise than I'd like to have, should I back down on my IDY or maybe on my sugar content?My original dough formula required fresh cake yeast, I changed to IDY due to doubts in freshness from my available suppliers in this area, and maybe I got the conversion wrong and I'm heavy on yeast?I used to be able to store my dough in a cooler, and work it cold right out of the cooler to form a beautiful pizza. I also used to put my scaled/balled dough on floured sheet pans, and dust some flour on top for storage. I now use dough boxes and oil as per your instructions and like not having crusty balls. (wait, maybe I better rephrase that last sentence)To make my formula more workable, and still keep it so it does not tear when stretched, I'm guessing upping the hydration, does oil, sugar, and or yeast content make a dough more or less workable? I'd like to have more salt for flavor, but I do not know what that would effect in workability qualities.I played with my mixing times, and found that I was where I wanted to be at with the appearance/feel. I am currently at a 14 minute mix in my Impasti spiral mixer.

Thank you,

As per other items;

Its been about 3-4 weeks since I've had a chance to get back here (getting my butt kicked at the restaurant, and our wedding season catering is killing us too) I had kicked the pizza plan to the curb due to lack of available/qualified labor available in this area. Currently, my entire kitchen staff has less than 10 days under their belts in a restaurant operation, so the 85-90 hour weeks are taking their toll on me. It seems to be a localized thing with labor in this area. Tourist towns can be like that.2 weeks ago, I called in 12 applicants for interviews, one guy actually showed up wearing bathroom slippers, pajama bottoms, and a bathrobe (I have pictures to prove it) of the 12 applicants that I called in, 4 showed up for their interviews, I hired all 4 of them, ONLY 1 of the 4 actually showed up for work when scheduled and this did not come as a surprise to me/us.

Anyways, everybody that has applied as a "Pizza Guy" that I have interviewed has either only been using frozen pre-formed crusts (sysco, reinhart, etc) or if there is fresh dough in their previous experience, it got run through a sheeter to an oversize diameter, and then it got cut to size. Just Not what I want for a pizza at my place!!

So, I started trolling Domino's hoping to get a few bewildered employees out of there, and I got one, a good one! The guy had a 16" skin opened in less than 60 seconds, it was even, it was round, it was beautiful, I almost cried from happiness. Turns out he's an ex Marine, and he is now serving in the army reserves (I'm even happier now that I have a veteran employed)So we are finally going live with our pizza 1 week from tomorrow! ) 08-07-13 The only thing this guy needed some practice on was portioning fresh sausage since he was only used to working with pre-cooked dog-kibble that those chain places use. He has some concerns about proper bake times since he has never used a deck oven, So we'll be baking pizzas for a few days before offering them on the menu so he gets used to not having a conveyor oven handling his timing.

As for my dough, the 50/50 mix of bouncer & APF has got me close enough to where I want to be, I'll be creeping back on the APF as he gains more experience and hopefully I'll be able to tweak my formula to have a flavorful, workable dough without mixing any flours.I'm gonna give all trumps a shot, and a few others that I found which are available to me in 25# bags (i'm limited by only having a 30Qt spiral mixer right now) and get that flavor/texture I remember from back in the day.

Tom, I am going to try upping to 62% hydration today, I plan on making a 10# batch with Bouncer, I have 50 pounds of All trumps being delivered tomorrow and we'll give'r a shot with that tomorrow, I figured we'll do pies on Sunday evening only until I build that up, and by then I should have some people trained to handle it.I have a sheeter, I don't want to use it, but if it helps noobs out to get a decent skin, I'll do it.

I ended up mixing way longer than I expected to get the feel I wanted, it balled up nicely, and after a very brief rest under refrigeration, I opened up a skin perfectly right out of the cooler.

Dough Problem Solved!!

Labor problems; Unsolvable at this point. My domino's guy turned out to be a bit odd. He felt that having the title of "Manager" was worth more to him than the $1.75 more per hour that he was going to get paid with me.He didn't want any responsibilities associated with being in a management position, he just wanted the title. Geesh, maybe I should gotten him a little gold plastic name tag that said 'Manager" on it, and started him at minimum wage instead?

Plus he was bothered that our dough is stretched on a granite surface with flour instead of corn meal. I explained that we use a light ducting of corn meal on the peel, but I do not want a crust covered in corn meal because I find it very unpalatable.

So, Starting Sunday the 11th, I will start pizza operations by myself at 5:00 PM until 10 PM on Sunday evenings only. Maybe I'll be able to build this end of the business up where it will attract some seasoned pizza guys to us without me actively looking for them.Wish me luck guys! Come hell or high water, I will be putting quality pizzas out.

Good deal Rocks. I think it is very advantageous to be able to open a dough straight out of the cooler. Have never really understood all the fuss about adding the complications of "tempering" the dough out on the counter for "x" amount of time.Get your dough right, pull from the cooler and get on with the business of making pizza...easy peazzy. Good luck on your Sunday evening trials man....I think you'll have fun now that you gave Bozo the boot! Now you can buy yourself one of those gold plastic badges. Badges?....we don't need no stinking badges!!